Posted
by
Unknown Lamer
on Wednesday April 02, 2014 @07:50AM
from the drive-better dept.

cartechboy (2660665) writes "Hitting that red light sucks. We've all been there, and you know what I'm talking about. But what if your car could tell you the ideal speed to maintain to hit the next green light? That's exactly what's going to happen in the near future thanks to car-to-car technology. Many automakers are already working on this new tech, and Honda's the latest to trial such systems. This is all part of what's known as Universal Traffic Management System which will eventually provide feedback on car-to-car and infrastructure systems before they go into practical use. The system will also be able to tell the driver if a red light is likely to show before reaching an intersection so the driver can slow down, or notify the driver when that red light will turn green. All of this may seem like something that's supposed to benefit the driver's temper, but in reality it's to help save fuel and lower emissions without any physical changes to the car. This is the future, and your vehicle will talk to other vehicles whether you like it or not."

I'm fairly sure in parts of the UK they implemented staggered green lights along busy stretches of road. If you accelerated modestly to the speed limit, or just below, the lights were timed to turn green as you got to them.
Those with lead feet would be accelerating hard, then waiting at the lights as you cruised by.

In some parts of the world they have dynamic speed signs that tells what speed you need to drive to hit each traffic light when they are green, aka. a green wave. Works like a charm no matter what kind of vehicle you are driving.

The idea is that when you are 1000m away from the light and can't see the countdown timer your car tells you something like "maintain 30kph to avoid having to stop". By driving slower than you normally would you reach the light just as it goes green again, rather than having to stop/start.

True story: The lecturer that taught us general relativity at university was a fantastic guy that was also pretty good at drawing cartoons. For one of the questions on the final exam, he drew a scene of a guy being stopped by a policeman: "I am stopping you for crossing the red light." "I saw it as green, I swear officer." "Fine, then I will write you a ticket for speeding." The question was to calculate the speed of the car, given the wavelengths of green and red light and the velocity of light.

That seems correct. As a Michigan native, I can tell you they're best described as "really not that bad".

As a pedestrian, there's no "left turn" phase at lights, so the pedestrian crossings are more frequent, but that's offset by the longer green lights. You end up waiting the same amount of time, but have a longer time with clear right-of-way (though it should be noted that many states' laws explicitly give right-of-way to pedestrians who started crossing legally).

As a driver, direct left turns are still more convenient for a very busy intersection, but for something like a boulevard with businesses on each side, occasional U-turn spaces are a nicer alternative to a center turn lane. There are no conflicts with oncoming traffic and no traffic backups in unplanned spaces. Since the "left turn" maneuver is split into three components, the maximum complexity of each maneuver is reduced - at no point do you have to be concerned with more than one direction of traffic flow.

Once I got used to those several maneuvers, I found navigating Michigan lefts to be easier than a direct left turn. Shifting to the left lane for the U-turn could be done at my leisure, and it didn't matter if I miss the first U-turn, as I could expect another soon.